let's paint this town
by findmywaybacktoyou
Summary: Colours can be used to represent emotions. The residents of Mystic Falls are very emotional people. These colours can define them. A series of drabbles based on a prompt about colours.
1. RED

**Title:** RED  
><strong>Character(s):<strong> Klaus  
><strong>Warning(s):<strong> spoilers for all of season three.  
><strong>Note(s):<strong> I asked a friend to give me prompts because I hadn't written in awhile. This is in response to one of them.  
><strong>Prompt:<strong> _'colours' - red is for anger._

* * *

><p>Fury simmers under his skin, itching to get out. He wants to rage and break things, and pull the hearts of unsuspecting civilians out of their chests. <em>How dare she<em>, he breathes and overturns the coffee table in the same instant.

He wants to burn the town to the ground, watch the flames lick the walls of the schools and hospitals, and watch the witch cry through the flickering of the fire as she did when she damn near killed him. He wants her to **hurt**, to ache as much as he does. He wants to destroy her as she has destroyed each and every of his plans, foiled him at every turn.

That slip of a teenage _girl_, a witch barely understanding her powers. And she has the nerve to go up against him. Stand by the Salvatores, vampires, creatures she **loathes**, simply to end him.

Klaus fumes with every unnecessary breath he takes. No one enters this study, none of his newly reunited family, not even his mother or Rebekah. He is murderous in this moment. His family is surprised the town has not been painted red with the blood of its' citizens.

And to think all it takes to get him this furious is a teenage witch who has tried, and damn near succeeded, to kill him.


	2. PINK

**Title:** PINK  
><strong>Character(s):<strong> Elena, mentions of Stefan, Bonnie, Caroline  
><strong>Warning(s):<strong> a little sad. spoilers for season three.  
><strong>Note(s):<strong> I asked a friend to give me prompts because I hadn't written in awhile. This is in response to one of them.  
><strong>Prompt:<strong> _'colours' - pink is for love._

* * *

><p>Elena flips through her journal, fingers skimming over words she remembers writing and wondering where that girl went. In the past few months, she has lost herself, as she has lost Stefan. And Stefan is back, but he is no longer <strong>her<strong> Stefan. Her fingers still and she pulls out the photo she had stuck into the journal. Her breath catches, and her other hand comes up to cover the gasp that escapes her mouth, journal falling to the ground.

It's a picture Bonnie had taken, during one of their movie nights. Stefan's got his arm around Elena, and she's laughing at something. She remembers it being a ridiculous comment of Caroline's. What brings tears to her eyes is the way Stefan is looking at her in the picture. The love in his eyes is obvious, and her heart bleeds at the fact that she does not see that anymore in his eyes. Her Stefan is gone, maybe for good.

A sob escapes, and she crumples the picture and throws it into the bin as she walks into the bathroom to clean her face and calm herself. She will regret that in the morning, and will ask Bonnie for a copy. But she allows herself this moment of weakness, of heartbreak.

She does not expect to come out of the bathroom to find the picture flattened, a little unsuccessfully, on her dresser. Her window is open, curtains fluttering. Her heart beats wildly in her chest.

Maybe her Stefan is not completely gone.


	3. GREEN

**Title:** GREEN  
><strong>Character(s):<strong> Caroline  
><strong>Warning(s):<strong> a little angst ahead. spoilers for season three.  
><strong>Note(s):<strong> I asked a friend to give me prompts because I hadn't written in awhile. This is in response to one of them.  
><strong>Prompt:<strong> _'colours' - green is for envy._

* * *

><p>She's people-watching. Caroline's never done this before, never just sat in one place and observed the people walking by. She's always been too busy, flitting from party to event. She's always assumed that she'll have a lifetime to sit by and do this, to slow down.<p>

But her lifetime has been snatched away from her. Her **life** has been snatched away from her. Being unaware, being innocent to the darkness of life, to the horrors of the world, that's all been taken away from her.

She sits on her bench, sees the teenagers laughing over nothing of consequence, sees couples gazing at each other with love, sees old couples hand-in-hand and realizes that she will never have that again. It is one thing to know something intellectually and another completely to have it thrust in your face and know that it can never be you.

Caroline is _jealous_, completely and probably irrationally _envious_, of the people around her, the people's whose lives don't involve vampires and hybrids and death and destruction and the fear that tomorrow someone else might be gone, for good, that tomorrow, tomorrow might not even come.

She resents them their happiness and obliviousness, and wishes that she could be just like them.

But she can't. Never again.


	4. YELLOW

**Title:** YELLOW  
><strong>Character(s):<strong> Matt, mentions of Caroline, Sheriff Forbes, Damon, Stefan, Tyler, Jeremy, Bonnie, Elena, Alaric  
><strong>Warning(s):<strong> spoilers for season three.  
><strong>Note(s):<strong> I asked a friend to give me prompts because I hadn't written in awhile. This is in response to one of them.  
><strong>Prompt:<strong> _'colours' - yellow is for joy._

* * *

><p>It's been a long time since any of them have had reason to laugh like this, to act like the carefree teenagers they are meant to be. It's Matt's idea for all of them to have a movie night, free from drama and mayhem, because, he says, he's tired of wondering if his friends are okay. So he commandeers Caroline's house, with the Sheriff's help, and drags them all away from worry and Grimoires and stakes and coffins and makes them sit down and puts in the most ridiculous movie he can find.<p>

Of course, it's far from the sleepovers of their childhood since Caroline and Damon and Stefan _(and no one asks how Stefan agreed, or anything really, because they're so happy to just have him there with them)_ are sipping blood from coffee mugs and Bonnie's levitating the snacks so that Tyler can grab some from behind where Jeremy has thrown himself onto the werewolf's lap.

Matt's just glad that they're all there, even Damon, and that for once they're not talking about the next plot to bring down Klaus or to keep the town safe. They're discussing the ridiculousness of the amount of homework Alaric has given them when he knows the situation, and laughing at the jokes in Monty Python despite the fact that they've all seen it before.

They're acting like a group of friends, with nothing to worry about but high school graduation and college admissions. There is a haze of contentment floating about the room as they revel in the fact that they're together, and for tonight, they're safe. For tonight, they can be kids again. Matt exchanges a grin with the Sheriff when he spots her in the doorway.

And if his grin widens when Caroline settles herself next to him and rests her head on his shoulder, grumbling about Elena being a blanket hog? Well, then, no one needs to know that.


	5. BLUE

**Title:** BLUE  
><strong>Character(s):<strong> Tyler, Jeremy  
><strong>Warning(s):<strong> angst ahead. spoilers for season three. slash-y.  
><strong>Note(s):<strong> I asked a friend to give me prompts because I hadn't written in awhile. This is in response to one of them.  
><strong>Prompt:<strong> _'colours' - blue is for healing and understanding._

* * *

><p>He's standing on the doorstep, waiting for the younger man to open the door so he can apologise, because he is. Sorry, that is. He's so sorry.<p>

He's not sure what's happening to him. He doesn't understand why he feels the need to do everything Klaus says, why he'd do this to anyone, and he doesn't want to. He just wants it to stop.

And he knows, if Jeremy opens the door, and forgives him, and tells him that it'll be okay, then it will. It will be okay, _he'll_ be okay, if he's got Jeremy by his side.

When the door opens, he sees Jeremy's shock and **fear**, and Tyler's heart breaks. Jeremy's not supposed to be afraid of him. If Jeremy's afraid of him, if Jeremy believes he's truly capable of this, then Tyler's got nothing left to keep him afloat, to keep him fighting.

So he brings his hand up to stop Jeremy from slamming the door in his face, reminiscent to another time, only this is so much more important. The words are spilling out of him, a word-vomit habit he completely blames Jeremy for. He stops when he's got no more words to say, and waits. He waits for Jeremy's answer. It all rests on this one boy now. His life, his existence, rests in Jeremy's hands. _He wouldn't have it any other way._

And then brown eyes look into his, and Tyler's breath catches, and the pieces of his heart begin to piece together because what he sees in Jeremy's eyes is nothing short of a miracle.

Jeremy holds out a hand to Tyler. Tyler grips it like it's a lifeline.

He can breathe easy again. He'll be okay, he has Jeremy by his side. He can fight anything and anyone if he has Jeremy by his side.


	6. WHITEBLACK

**Title:** WHITE/BLACK  
><strong>Character(s):<strong> Stefan, Damon, mentions of Elena, Katherine, Klaus, Alaric.  
><strong>Warning(s):<strong> a little angst ahead. spoilers for season three.  
><strong>Note(s):<strong> I asked a friend to give me prompts because I hadn't written in awhile. This is in response to one of them.  
><strong>Prompt:<strong> _'colours' - white is for good, black is for evil._

* * *

><p>People think that Stefan's the good brother, the one who you can turn to in times of crisis. He's there when you need a friend, he's a shoulder to cry on. He saves people, helps them, and hates the idea of hurting innocents.<p>

Stefan thinks it's all a lie. He's a monster. He craves blood, and it's practice and willpower that keeps him from tearing into people's necks and draining them dry. He's the boy who got duped by the girl he thought he was in love with, the boy who ruined his relationship with his brother for a girl who turned out to be nothing like what he thought. He's the boy who turned his older brother into a monster because he was too selfish to be alone.

When he meets Elena, she sees something in him that makes him think that maybe there is some goodness left in him, something that will redeem him. She makes him want to be better. She's everything he had thought Katherine was, everything that Katherine **wasn't**.

And for some insane reason she loves him.

Despite the fact that he has sold his soul, the remnants of his humanity to Klaus in order to save his brother, despite the fact that he has essentially picked Damon over her, Elena still sees something worth saving in him.

The world sees Damon as the bad brother. He's the one who drains hikers dry for the fun of it, who compels girls to parade around in their underwear and uses them as personal blood bags. He kills and murders and plays mind games.

Stefan knows it's all a lie. There's more to his brother than that. His humanity is there, it's there in the way he waited 145 years to try and save Katherine. It's there in the way he becomes honest-to-god friends with Alaric. It's there in the friendship he builds with Elena. It's even there in his interactions with the rest of the motley crew, because although he says he doesn't like them and he threatens them, Stefan knows that Damon would kill anyone who dared to hurt them in a heartbeat.

So Stefan sells the soul he's not sure he has for the soul he knows his brother hides, because if anyone deserves to be happy, it's Damon. It's Stefan's fault he's in this mess in the first place, and Stefan will be the one to get him out.

Of course, Damon thinks Stefan's an idiot. Stefan can't keep saving him, and Damon's going to do everything to get his brother back.

Because Damon knows it doesn't matter who is the good brother or who is the bad brother, the world isn't black and white, they can be a bit of both. They **are** a bit of both. All that matters though, is that they are _brothers_.

They are brothers, and family is all that matters in the end.

That is their humanity. That is their salvation.


End file.
